The reinstatement of North Korea: What effects on the ‘story’ of socialism?

It seems unlikely – as it defies 73 years of ongoing aggression, warfare, the near-warfare of constant tap dancing on the border, starvation-creating sanctions, false promises, broken promises, racist caricaturing, hysterical knee-jerk anti-socialism, and more besides – but what if Washington finally allows North Korea to reintegrate into the multinational world?

North Korea has been so politically oppressed from without that they are less integrated into global affairs, regional affairs, and even local & national affairs (their country was forcibly divided, after all) than any nation. They are even less integrated than the other few nations which have sustained modern (and thus socialist-inspired) popular revolutions, such as Cuba, Iran, Eritrea, mighty China and their fighting Vietnamese comrades.

We are told that we don’t really know anything about North Korea! We are also told to believe nothing from Pyongyang, and that the “Hermit Kingdom” is the most inscrutable of all those very-inscrutable East Asians. But I reported from Seoul and the DMZ border in 2013 and learned some interesting things (5 of them are here).

If I had to give the two most important ideas, they would be: no People have lived with more meddling exterior menaces since the year 1945 -North Koreans are bordered by and/or threatened by the US, South Korea, Russia, China and Japan); and the second point would be that the reunification of an $8 trillion mineral-rich, well-educated (darn those socialist countries with their not-for-profit education programs) North Korea with South Korea would almost IMMEDIATELY create the world’s 5th-largest economy, trailing only the US, China, Japan and Germany. I hold these truths to be self-evident, and move on to the point of this article….

Let’s conjecture that Korea is still not allowed to reunite but that North Korea is allowed a global reinstatement on the level of China and Vietnam, leapfrogging poor Cuba and lonely Iran (but who is lonely when they have God?): How would that affect socialism on a global-historical scale?

What do I mean by that? I mean: socialism is a historical-political movement which covers 200 years, which is nearly as faith-based as Islam or Christendom, and which is nearly as economically influential as the era of industrialisation (an era which has lasted 250 years because many colonized countries have never even finished the First Industrial Revolution) and reinstatement for North Korea means a North Korean victory…and a victory for North Korea HAS TO impact the “narrative of socialism”, no?

Right now the narrative since 1992 is that “History is over”, per Francis Fukuyama, and capitalism has defeated socialism until the end of time…except that Fukuyama himself just backtracked on that with a recent interview: “At this juncture, it seems to me that certain things Karl Marx said are turning out to be true.” Ah, really Frank? By “juncture” you mean roughly 1848, right?

It’s 2018 and we’re talking North Korean reintegration, old F.F. is having doubts and Donald Trump is in the White House – what is the world coming to?!

Trump, God bless his Nobel Peace Prize-deserving soul (hey, Obama re-set the bar, right?) seems willing to do what the smartphone-loving world demands: end the Cold War on North Korea…in order to start exploiting the Jongju superdeposit, the world’s largest rare earth metals cache, and which may contain double the world’s known rare earth element resources. Money talks with capitalists, not ideology/morality/history….

So what does it mean for socialism if North Korea is allowed to allow people in?

Here’s what I’m picturing: Much like Iran, foreigners come visit and realize: this place is far more modern and put together than often ignorantly assumed. After all, North Korea seems to have the ideological cohesion of Cuba combined with a high-tech skillset & wealth volume closer to Iran (Cuba’s “wealth volume” is limited by population size, containing only sugar and nickel, and by being an island (blockade-busting is thus harder)). With reinstatement the world will slowly realize and accept that North Korea is indeed a socialist success – just like China and Vietnam. Unlike Iran, there is no Islamophobia for the Christian-Atheist West to use as a deflection.

Reinstatement means Asians run socialism like Westerners run capitalism

A North Korean victory means we are talking about the four biggest socialist success stories, certainly from an economic standpoint, being from Asia.

Concurrently, European socialism is not even close to being revived: it’s hard to shock back into life someone who has drunk hemlock (events of 1989-1991) and also asked to be shot (the Eurozone & European Union). Asia turns to its left, sees Iran, mumbles (but not disapprovingly), stands on its tiptoes and shakes its head while discussing “revisionism” and “the lack of a Cultural Revolution”.

Here is the fundamental question at the heart of this article: The West writes the history of socialism because they are the “victors” and history is written by the victors.

The West is the “victor” in every way possible, of course – one can never question that. They are the “victors” in what “socialism” is, means and should be…which is paradoxical, because they have undoubtedly always been the “victors” in capitalism-imperialism and are the current victors in neo-imperialism.

Western paradoxes are there only to be ignored, so I’ll continue: They are also the “victors” in which rights are “human” and which are not; they are the “victors” in what is “freedom” and what is not; they are the “victors” in which economics are successful and which are not. All of these are absolutely without a defensible factual foundation – especially the more-mathematical last one – but I contend that the West believes, and much of the rest of the world is also persuaded, that the West are the “victors” in achieving the greatest amount of “socialist victory”. (For the record, I do not believe nor am persuaded by any of these claims.)

Again, socialism is a movement which is so long and so enduring that it forces us to extend our viewpoint: If North Korea is added to the list of socialist victories…what does and what should the world do?

Save a few Latin American countries, only one of which is stable (Cuba); save a few African countries, only two of which are stable (Algeria, Eritrea); it must be admitted that Asian socialism is currently victorious in the “global-regional competition”.

Therefore, I insist an integration of North Korea allows me to declare the “end of history”: Asian socialism is the only acceptable model, and all must follow Asia henceforth.

LOL, but such a declaration is not “socialism” at all because socialism (like Islam) cannot be forced: it would then cease to be democratic, and socialism is the most class- and citizen-inclusive sociopolitical model ever created in human history. This type of a declaration can only be made by capitalists, who impose by force the ideas of one person (or of an oligarchical few).

Obviously, the actual ramifications of a North Korean success on the “narrative of socialism” is multi-faceted, complicated and boring to many, but the ramifications are real, impactful, undeniable and unavoidable.

What do Western socialists ‘learn’ from a North Korean success?

Is the West capable of learning from a North Korean success?

Past behaviour is the best indicator of future behaviour, so my answer is “no”: The West will make it a point to remain the “victors” (in their view) and thus learn nothing from North Korea’s success, just as they have learned nothing from the successes of China, Iran, Cuba, etc.

The West will try to co-opt North Korean success by the same lie – that North Korea is an anti-democratic mullah-ocracy…no wait, a one-family dictatorship like Cuba – that works better.

They will deny the existence of North Korea’s undeniably socialist rules, laws, history and martyrs. They will also deny the words and experiences of actual North Koreans because the Western “victors” can and should speak for everyone: The Western tongue is the “one, true” tongue.

Above all they will assert – on the Western left and the Western right – that North Korea never was socialist at all, or that it could possibly be “socialist” now. Sadly, Western socialists often do the work of the imperialist-capitalists for them; they, paradoxically are “socialists” despite espousing the exact same (nonsensical, uninformed, self-referencing, self-centered, self-interested) views on North Korea in 2018 as right-wingers.

But for the true socialists living in the Western countries – and I am talking about perhaps as many as 14 people – a North Korean success should be applauded loudly. After all – no other socialist nation has endured more to win sovereignty, freedom and their own form of socialism. Of course, this public applauding will make us even more socially-isolated in Western society to the point where we will have even greater trouble finding that elusive 15th comrade….

It’s undeniable, at least to me, that socialism can be divided into 3 distinct eras: West European dominance (Marx, Paris Commune), East European/Slavic dominance (USSR, Eastern Bloc) and Asian dominance (China, Vietnam, Iran…North Korea?). A North Korean integration means that we are STILL living in this mostly-unappreciated 3rd historical era of Asian dominance in socialist thought and practice. Reinstatement also implies that the long-awaited “Latin American dominance era”, to be led by Cuba, remains unmaterialized (due to the continued domination of the “Monroe Doctrine era”).

Of course, most Western leftists don’t want to hear any analysis which relegates the West to 2nd fiddle, as they are still the “victors”…and they are: in living in a tired, nostalgic, decidedly un-revolutionary fashion.

Trump has certainly said and done crazy things but the re-integration of North Korea follows as much capitalist logic as the re-integration of China (consumer demand, loans/bond buying, formerly low- but now mid-cost labor (providing mid-cost labor is the function Eastern Europe currently serves for the German neo-imperialism of the Eurozone)) and Vietnam (low-cost labor):

Without access to North Korea’s rare earth metals China will have perhaps as great a chokepoint on the modern global economy as any OPEC nation save Arabia (which I refuse to call “Saudi”, as only Western governments believe/want the house of Saud to be synonymous with the People of Arabia). Furthermore, due to their educational advancements, North Korea can obviously serve the same function for South Korea as East Germany did for West Germany upon their reunification: cheap but smart labor.

(Iran might have oil instead of rare earth metals, but how can they serve this capitalist labor function when they are (due to imperialist throttling) the most populous, most advanced economy in the Middle East? Even if a counter-revolution happened in Iran, who would make them their mid-cost labor hub – Russia, India, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt? None of those will work. This is why toppling Iran (combined with their anti-imperialist & anti-Zionist stances) is Washington’s continued project, in contrast to this floated reinstatement of North Korea. The US, being capitalist, runs on lobbies and money – somebody is obviously greasing the policy wheels (exercising their “free speech”) in favor of Pyongyang, and to hell with Korean War veterans groups or anyone else.

But that last is a bold statement – North Korean reinstatement…seriously? Sounds great – Koreans are certainly all for that, and they deserve Korean socialism…or at least to be #5 instead of pawns in a four-way game.

What does “socialism do” if North Korea becomes a success story – acknowledge it or ignore it? It seems like the answer depends on what part of the world you live in, but that is certainly a response which is “bad socialism”.

Socialism’s recent past and its present remains centered in the East, but socialism’s future remains open to anyone with common sense, a disposition for equality, and the courage to speak out.

Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for PressTV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. His work has appeared in various journals, magazines and websites, as well as on radio and television. He can be reached on Facebook.

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If a socialist claps in the woods, does it make a sound?
What is the sound of one socialist clapping?

:)

Back when I was in the protest movements of the late 80’s, early 90’s, slogans were made opposing a statement made, I think by Iron Maiden Thatcher, that “There is no alternative”. Thus the protest banners proclaiming that there are indeed alternatives. That another world is possible.

That is always one line of attack in the corporate propaganda. That there is no alternative. That no other world, no other society is possible. That their corporate hell is all that we can possibly aspire to. They constantly try to convince the world of these things. And of course, they always lie. Good on them if North Korea adds themselves to the list of proofs that they are lying.

I strongly disagree with the author that Russia is one of North Korea’s enemies/”meddling menaces” as the author claims, and neither is China. They are simply neighbours who would prefer a less jittery and less provocative neighbour who doesn’t test nuclear weapons on their doorstep, that’s all.

I even more strongly disagree with the author’s description of Socialism being “a historical-political movement which covers 200 years, which is nearly as faith-based as Islam or Christendom”. That is a something maybe Americans would say, being utterly ignorant on the matter. Socialism is a very well defined socio-economic system, spanning much much more than a mere 200 years, that is – it was the original system since we evolved from primates, and still is the only possible system within our families. You try practicing Capitalism on your newborn child, and you’ll understand what I mean.

I didn’t bother reading the rest of the article, I have better things to do with my time.

true indeed. both words come from commune and social and we survived as species because we collaborated instead of fighting each other. if we continue on the path of corporate capitalism (Corporitism) we will most likely end up exterminating each other and killing most life on earth.

too many conjectures and sugar coated lies.
1. the West will try to change North Korea into a Capitalism country as soon as they get their grubby hands on it and as soon as the ink is put down on the contracts they think they can get the starved North Koreans to sign. The West will NEVER acknowledge NK successes. Thats ridiculous

2. The point about trying to bypass China’s rare earth metals is well deserved. Thank you for pointing that out. Things make a lot mroe sense when that little item is taken into account.
3. The West has certainly learned A LOT from Cuba/Venezuela/Chile/Iran and all the other countries who have been communist, tried communism. The West carefully has studied them to learn how to be more effective against them in the future and be able to strangle them. (There was a news item today where Sierra Leone(the poorest country in Africa) dropped a big 300 million deal with China, no doubt under pressure from our Western pals)
The West knows what they are doing and knows where to strike. Trust me on this. They study weaknesses as carefully as a reptile studying the movement of mouse.
Unfortunately, it appears from studying European Communism that it was the Communists who were ignorant wishful thinkers and had no clue as to what they were doing. That is why they failed and Asian communism succeed. As a child born and raised under European communism I can testify that sadly the Communism had NO CLUE how to run a country or economy.

It still seems odd to use the western european division of the large land mass of Eurasia, and how Asia becomes a different continent.

Iran and China are both considered Asia because to the English they were both way, way, over there. Like the lands with all of the variations on the word east, middle east, far east, southeast asia.

Ie, there were various centers of populations on the Eurasian land mass. Persia was one and China was another. They are linked in the popular mind as asia because the western europeans thought they were far away. Thus the world is defined by the people who tried to sail to China and got lost and ended up killing the native peoples of America.

As an Asian living in South-East Asia I’m not really heart-broken about the fact Europeans decided to separately identify themselves as Europe.Just think about how many enemies I’d have if Europeans had decided to identify themselves with us.But I agree with the middle/far-East part, those are clearly Euro-centric terms.

I can’t say Socialism is good or not but one those that decry it’s existence have to answer one question. Why does the that “bastion of capitalism and democracy” attack, whether by military, economically, or covert overthrow every major 2nd or 3rd world country that goes socialist. Venezuela, Afghanistan, Syria, Egypt, Cuba, North Korea, Nicaragua (currently on the hit list), Chile, Guatemala, and so many more with most of those countries democratically ELECTING their governments. If socialism is so bad for these people why wouldn’t the US wait in the wings and give those countries a hand up when things don’t work out instead of creating chaos and hardship to punish the citizens of the targeted country for making a supposed bad choice.

The mistake this author and many others make is taking Trump, or any politician, at his word. Actions and deeds speak far louder than words and Trump is full on deep state who does not want the North Koreans to open to the world or reunite with the South nor does he wish better relations with Russia let alone China or any country that supports them. Trump is killing the one world government of 1%ers and intellectuals from around the world and replace it with a one world government led by the DC swamp. Trumps apologists claim he’s afraid for his life and has to do the bidding of the swamp creatures. Bunk. Obama did the Iran deal and did not blow Syria off the map, 2 things the deep state wanted, and he’s still above ground running his lying mouth.

As it is North Korea vs the US is worse since Trump came on the scene. The great progress made so far is all done by South Korea and if they push too far expect Trump to kill their economic miracle, favored nation trade status, and put tariffs on their goods flooding the US markets claiming they are profiting at the expense of the US. In the NY Times expose, fact or fiction who knows, it was claimed one of the papers stolen off Trumps desk was to revolke South Korea’s favored nation trade status.

Documentary by Andre Vltchek shows everyday life in socialist Korea: A mother takes her beautifully dressed infant to the roller skating rink. Young adults go to work in clean metro trains with lots of space. People live in wellbuilt new apartment blocks at low rent. Streets without traffic jams. A population that is well nourished but note obese. Everywhere, ordinary people go about their business or leisure with an air of brisk contentment.

But if Ramzin is right, and N.Korea is sitting on top of “our” (ie the AZC’s) biggest deposit of rare earth metals, then I can understand why a new wave of anti-Communist phobia is stampeding the West to re-invade N.Korea, 70 years after we had “bombed it until there was nothing left to bomb”.

Thanks for a great essay, Ramin Mazaheri. I draw great hope from your writings on socialism. After a lifetime of capitalist theft, abuse and propaganda, it’s good to hear that socialism works successfully as an economic system and takes care of its people, principally by not stealing the wealth they create.

When north and south Korea unite, what will the resulting mix of economies look like? Everyone will be watching to see how the world’s fifth-largest economy will evolve.

”Concurrently, European socialism is not even close to being revived: it’s hard to shock back into life someone who has drunk hemlock (events of 1989-1991) and also asked to be shot (the Eurozone & European Union).”

Correct. And the deindustrialization of Europe — utter bogus ”industries” such as finance and gambling do not count in my book, mind you — also means that the socialist approach and ethos of planning production for the greater good of society and its development have no real, material ground to stand upon.

Still, Western leftists believe they hold sway over more combustible peoples who refuse to grovel before corporate fascism and liberalism; this fighting spirit is duly slandered as ’authoritarianism’. Well, the Western Leftists’ audience is gone forever, so they pander to sexual perverts and other undeserving constituencies while forever finding common ground with Western imperialism to attack each and every one of the latter’s adversaries.

”Above all they will assert – on the Western left and the Western right – that North Korea never was socialist at all, or that it could possibly be ’socialist’ now. Sadly, Western socialists often do the work of the imperialist-capitalists for them”

Western socialists are social-imperialists, because their material privilege is due to the proceeds of imperialism. Their moral corruption is almost entertaining to watch now that they don’t even pretend to support the global fight against capitalist violence, oppression, and lawlessness but still have the gall to blather about what passes for ”real socialism” in oppressed countries! To curry favour with these specimina, the DPRK had better pass a law making faggot parades and transgender rest rooms compulsory.

I think Confucianism provides a nice solid substrate on which socialism can flourish with fewer of the pitfalls found in the European version. Probably Islam does too, but I know too little about that to comment. Confucianism seeks harmony and stability in which benevolence of persons higher in the hierarchy is defined within the social contract. It also seeks modesty and at least in the case of Japan, socialism does not advertise itself as such, but is practiced and puts up stubborn barriers that hopeful capitalists decry repeatedly. The Socialist Party was always one of the main opposition parties despite America’s heavy involvement in running Japan, and communists are numerous despite the persecution they suffer. Trade unions are active and effective. The tax system puts a considerably lighter burden on the working class in Japan than America. Needless to say, Japan’s socialized medicine is very good, even covering traditional Eastern medical techniques. Farming is subsidized. Speculation in investment, on the other hand, is heavily discouraged through taxation.

Thanks Ramin, for an interesting view.
(And also a treat to read your style of writing, ever considered writing a book?)

I guess TPTB will never allow a reunification of SK and NK. Apart from the obvious potential of REE (rare earth elements) in NK and the desperate need of implying another Rothschild central bank, it will deprive SK of the need of a large US troops presence, so nicely close to the borders of China and Russia. And, I think that the main driver of Kim is to stay in power.

Is SK such a capitalist miracle, that will sweep the world together with NK? I wonder.

A few weeks ago I saw a mesmerizing documentary about SK on the German television (ZDF, yes, MSM, but actually every now and then they have excellent and critical docus there).
For the sake of completeness I will drop the link: https://www.zdf.de/dokumentation/zdfinfo-doku/suedkorea-erfolg-um-jeden-preis-102.html (translated: South Korea: success at any price).
Unfortunately it is in German, and only accessible in Germany, but for those who understand German and can manipulate a VPN it is available.

Short summary:
In SK they have official labor weeks of 52 hours. The real average working day is 14 hours. 10 days holiday, but it is not appreciated when actually use them all. People sleep in their offices.
Does this result in more success? Hell, no. The labor productivity in SK is one of the lowest of all developed countries, more details on this here: http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=3047785

One could argue that the workers chose for this themselves, but scholars have the same kind of life. High school ends at about 16:00, but afterwards they go to extra education to reach to ‘best in class’. Almost all do that, to about 22:00. Then homework, and sleep hits in at about 01:00.
If someone should propose this as ‘education’ for my children, I would tell him to go f*** himself, but hey, I was raised in W-Europe. Our labor productivity is higher, right?

A solicitor couldn’t find a job, because companies told him that his looks didn’t represent the company standards enough (in other words, they considered him too ugly – he appeared quite normal to me, though). It is no coincidence that SK scores so high on plastic surgery – mostly noses and eyes, in order to look more ‘western’ as a beauty ideal.

Pensions were only introduced in the eighties, so retired workers can fall in a dark place. Guaranteed is 300$ a month, the docu showed an old man living in a 5m2 ‘appartment’, and a women of 81 that could hardly walk in gathering paper and cartons to earn another 200$ a month.

Well, would NK want this kind of life? I can remember my thought that NK may have the name to be a large labor camp, but doesn’t this apply for SK as well?

Maybe some kind of ‘mix’ will work, but I don’t see this happen in the foreseeable future.

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